Foundation/Running the AGM and election to board

Tasks related to running the General Meetings and the election to board that could be done by the Membership Working Group and community members.

Tasks done by MWG/community members in recent years

• Verifying election set-up and back-up polling operator (2019 - Michael Spreng [MWG], 2018 - Steve Friedl [MWG], 2017 - Michael Spreng [MWG])
• Verifying election results. (2019 - Ilya Zverev, 2019 - Michael Spreng [MWG], 2018 - Steve Friedl [MWG], 2017 - Michael Spreng [MWG])
• Facilitating questioning board candidates (2019 and 2018 - Michael Collinson)
• Polling (2016 - Dermot McNally)
• Updating OSM wiki (several community members)

Tasks

OSM wiki

Create and update page with information and key-dates

• E.g. https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Foundation/AGM19/Election_to_Board and subpages

OSMF website

Create and update page with information, key-dates, voting results, AGM participants etc.

• E.g. https://wiki.osmfoundation.org/wiki/Annual_General_Meetings/2019 and subpages

Membership database (CiviCRM) access

• Create membership lists of
  • normal members eligible to vote.
  • associate members eligible to vote.
  • new OSMF members not eligible to vote.
• Create and send announcements:
  • NOTICE Xth Annual General Meeting of the OpenStreetMap Foundation.
  • Warning expired/soon to expire Normal Members - renew for 20xx AGM.
  • Warning expired/soon to expire Associate Members - renew for 20xx AGM.
  • Not eligible to vote.
  • Emails to osmf-talk.

Helping the election QA facilitator

By formatting the text and publishing candidate's answers and manifestos (on pre-set date) on the OSM wiki.

Election platform (OpaVote) access

• Set-up election.
• Verifying election set-up.
• Set up mock election page for trying javascript.
• Upload list of members emails eligible to vote.
• Open voting (specific date and time, 1 week before AGM).
• Monitor reports of voting emails delivery (during week before AGM).
• Disable email voting and produce voting codes for people for whom vote delivery was unsuccessful (during week before AGM).
• Reply to enquiries (during week before AGM).
• Close voting (specific date and time).
• Export voting results and back-up files.

Verification of voting results (OpenSTV)

• OpaVote displays the results. Traditionally, we have downloaded the ballots, and used the open source openstv program to verify the results. This might be overkill, ther should never be any discrepancy. But in the interest of maximum transparency, openstv allows inspection of the counting what opavote no longer does (opavote was open source as openstv until around 2011)
• Verification with openstv:
  • I have a virtual machine with ubuntu16.04 where openstv is still in the package manager
  • Download the ballot files
  • Verification of board election:
    • File > Run Election
    • Choose the downloaded ballots file
    • Method: Scottish STV
    • Click OK.
    • There is another dialog "Election Options" where no changes are needed. Click OK.
    • The main window will output the result as text.
    • The last line shows the winners.
  • Verification of yes/no votes
    • File > Run Election
    • Choose the downloaded ballots file
    • Method: Approval Voting
    • Click OK.
    • There is another dialog "Election Options" where no changes are needed. Click OK.
    • The main window will output the count for yes and no.
    • !Important the last line, Winner, might not be correct for AoA changes, because they require 75%.
    • Instead, put the number of Yes and the total number of votes (Ballot file contains X non-empty ballots) into a calculator and calculate the percentage.
    • If it is an AoA change (special resolution), if it is 75% or more Yes it is accepted, otherwise rejected.
    • If it is a board resolution, if it is more than 50% Yes it is accepted, otherwise rejected.

Other

• Count members during General Meeting start to ensure we are above quota.
• Create list of members who have attended the General Meeting, to be published to the OSMF website.